US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3837

On May 18 2016 08:14 Naracs_Duc wrote:
Just for clarification since it seems to be highly conflated in this thread.

Privilege, Racism, and Institutional disparity are very different things that overlap over a lot a of the same issues.

Privilege is what a group gets who are favored by an institutional disparity while "isms" like Racism or Feminism, are the victims of that specific institutional disparity.

In the US white males are privileged, in that they live in a society that favors whites over blacks and favors men over women. This does not mean white males are racists or misogynists, it simply means that they are rewarded for being white males in a society with an institutional disparity.

In the US, a klan member is usually racists towards non-whites. This is a separate issue from any privilege the klan member might have, as his racism is a personal opinion he has that affects his outward actions to others. The klan member could be both privileged AND racists but he is not racist BECAUSE he's privileged not is he privileged BECAUSE he's racist.

Institutionalized disparities are side effects of the statistical trends within society. Little things like being more attracted to good looking people than ugly people will create an institutionalized disparity between ugly people and pretty people. Not that 100% of the citizens of this society actually hates or wants to hurt ugly people, but since there are statistical trends that favor the pretty people, more of them get chances to advance in either professional or social settings.

What does this mean?

When we conflate these three to al mean RACIST or MISOGYNIST or whatever "IST" that happens to be popular, it twists the dialogue such that people end up discussing very different things.

The privilege that some groups in this country get is an issue, and racism or sexism is one of the primary causes that leads to that privilege (but not the only)--but individuals themselves cannot create or control their privilege.

In the context of this discussion, african americans are usually very unprivileged in the US because of racist perceptions society has towards them on a large statistical scale. As such, african americans are pulled and pushed into less positive positions that creates the optic that there is correlation between being black and being of certain social hierarchies.

On May 18 2016 08:20 LegalLord wrote:

That's exactly the right way to make people much more polarized and willing to vote for reactionary candidates who promise to reverse that issue. Ignore people and they will push more strongly for their position, and furthermore it's a slippery slope.

If you try to label everything as "racist" and unworthy of being taken seriously, you're going to go down a very shitty road. Worried about economic issues with Syrian immigrants? Racist! Worried about crime from Mexican immigrants? Racist! Argue that BLM has a very shitty element to it that has encouraged lots of petty crime and poorly thought out accusations of "privilege omfgz" that don't hold up to scrutiny? Racist! Keep doing this, and it's no wonder that genuine race-related issues get drowned out in the process. Being a shitty messenger is not a good way to get your message to have any traction, and crying "racism" on every other issue is a great way to make a message that may otherwise seem reasonable to be drowned out.

On May 18 2016 08:26 Naracs_Duc wrote:


So much of this!

Step one in all dialogue is listening to both sides even if you disagree with the other side. Step two is looking at the overlapping ideas and place importance and emphasis on those. Once both sides are happy with something, then discussions can be made to stretch out the initial shared ideas to spread out to the rest of the core topic.

Its a slow, deliberate change that takes lots of time and lots of effort. When you start the discussion by accusing them of being evil then you're literally getting nowhere.

On May 18 2016 08:34 GreenHorizons wrote:


That seems like an unusually nuanced and reasonable position...

+ Show Spoiler +

The one thing I would pick at is while people can not individually create or control (save for small groups of powerful people) their privilege, other than mentally handicapped people, everyone can at least acknowledge it as an issue that needs to be resolved. If we could get everyone that far we could start making some progress.

Instead we have the other extreme where people are thinking it's really white men who are at the mercy of a new and destructive "black/female/etc... privilege"

It's demonstrated every time this topic comes up here and just about anywhere else.

On May 18 2016 08:29 ticklishmusic wrote:
NV Dems response to Sanders

Yeah I'm pretty tired of primary season so I'm just gonna sit this out with some popcorn

On May 18 2016 08:56 kwizach wrote:

It was disappointing to see how slimy the statement from the Sanders campaign was. I'm guessing it was written by Jeff Weaver given it followed his usual style of denying reality and doubling down on their narrative/attacking the "establishment", but Sanders still approved it. The misrepresentations and lies it included are embarrassing. They're running a presidential campaign, ffs.

On May 18 2016 09:36 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
So MSNBC might have just jinxed the Clinton campaign in the General when Chuck Todd just said those that voted for Sanders and other democrats and not Clinton were not important and Alison Grimes said their votes didn't matter.

On May 18 2016 08:29 ticklishmusic wrote:
NV Dems response to Sanders

Yeah I'm pretty tired of primary season so I'm just gonna sit this out with some popcorn

On May 18 2016 10:03 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:
its proportional so a basic draw doesn't help bernie other then maybe give him a reason to stay in the race (It's good pr but thats about it). I just wish California could have it's primary already so we could stop all this (pretty sure everything til then is essentially meaningless)

On May 18 2016 10:30 Mohdoo wrote:


Bernie losing KY prevents him from saying the revolution is finally happening and prevents him from pretending "winning" is all about the most recent primary, not delegates.

That being said, he's about to body slam Oregon. Hard. Despite my best efforts </3

On May 18 2016 10:33 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:



Oregon voters are like 90 percent white I think. It's expected

On May 18 2016 10:35 Mohdoo wrote:


I would be shocked to find we are only 90% white.